17 and 18 February 1854 • Washington, D.C. (Muscatine Journal, 24 Mar 54, UCCL 00007)
When I came out on the street this morning to take a view of Washington, the ground was perfectly white, and it was snowing as though the heavens were to be emptied, and that, too, in as short a time as possible. The snow was falling so thickly that I could scarcely see across the street. I started toward the capitol, but there being no sidewalk, I sank ankle deep in mud and snow at every step. When at last I reached the capitol, I found that Congress did not sit till 11 o’clock; so I thought ⒶemendationI would stroll around the city for an hour or two.1explanatory note
The Treasury Building is a pretty edifice, with a long row of columns in front, and stands about a square from the President’s house. Passing into the park in front of the White House, I amused myself with a gaze at Clark Mill’s great equestrian statue of Jackson. It is a beautiful thing, and well worth a long walk on a stormy day to see.2explanatory note The public buildings of Washington are all fine specimens of architecture, and would add greatly to the embellishment of such a city as New York—but here they are sadly out of place looking like so many palaces in a Hottentot village. The streets, indeed Ⓐemendationare fine—wide, straight, and level as a floor. But the buildings, almost invariably, are very poor—two and three story brick houses, and strewed about in clusters; you seldom see a compact square off Pennsylvania Avenue. They look as though they might have been emptied out of a sack by some Brobdignagian gentleman, and when falling, been scattered abroad by the winds. There are scarcely any pavements, and I might almost say no gas, off the thoroughfare, Pennsylvania Avenue. Then, if you should be seized with a desire to go to the Capitol, or somewhere Ⓐemendationelse, you may stand in a puddle of water, with the snow driving in your face for fifteen minutes or more, before an omnibus rolls lazily by; and when one does come, ten to one there are nineteen Ⓐemendationpassengers inside and fourteen outside, and while the driver casts on you a look of commiseration, you have the inexpressible satisfaction of knowing that you closely resemble a very moist dish-ragⒶemendation, (and feel so, too,) at the same time that you are unable to discover what benefit you have derived from your fifteen minutes’ soaking; and so, driving your fists into the inmost recesses of your breeches pockets, you stride away in despair, with a step and a grimace that would make the fortune of a tragedy actor, while your “onery” appearance is greeted with “screems of laftur” from a pack of vagabond boys over the way. Such is life, and such is Washington!
The Capitol is a very fine building, but it has been so often describedⒶemendation, that I will not attempt another portrait. The statuary with which it is adorned is most beautiful; but as I am no connoisseur in such matters, I will let that pass also. The large hall between the two Congressional Chambers is embellished with numerous large paintings, portraying some of the principal events in American history. One, the “Embarkation of the Pilgrims in the May Flower,” struck me as very fine—so fresh and natural. The “Baptism of PocahontusⒶemendation” is also a noble picture, and worthy the place it occupies.3explanatory note
I passed into the Senate Chamber to see the men who give the people the benefit of their wisdom and learning for a little glory and eight dollars a day. The Senate is now composed of a different material from what it once was. Its glory hath departed. Its halls no longer echo the words of a Clay, or Webster, or Calhoun. They have played their parts and retired from the stage; and though they are still occupied by others, the void is felt. The Senators Ⓐemendation dress very plainly as they should, and all avoid display, and do not speak unless they have Ⓐemendationsomething to say—and that cannot be said of the Representatives. Mr. Cass is a fine looking old man; Mr. DouglassⒶemendation, or “Young America,” looks like a lawyer’s clerk, and Mr. Seward Ⓐemendationis a slim, dark, bony individual, and looks like a respectable wind would blow him out of the country.4explanatory note
In the House nearly every man seemed to have something weighing on his mind on which the salvation of the Republic depended, and which he appeared very anxious to ease himself of; and so there were generally half a dozen of them on the floor, and “Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!” was echoed from every part of the house. Mr. Benton sits silent and gloomy in the midst of the din, like a lion imprisoned in a cage of monkeys, who, feeling his superiority, disdains to notice their chattering.5explanatory note
February 19.
The Smithsonian Institute is a large, fine building, in the same style of architecture as the Trinity Church of ⒶemendationNew York. It is composed of the same kind of stone as that edifice, and looks like a half-church and half-castle. It has a fine library, and also Ⓐemendationan extensive gallery of paintings. Lectures are delivered in it almost every evening.6explanatory note Park Benjamin lectures there this evening.7explanatory note
If there is anything in Washington, worth a visit, it is the Museum of the Patent Office. It is free to visitors at all times of the day, and is by far the largest collection of curiosities in the United States. The Ⓐemendationfirst story of this magnificent building Ⓐemendationis occupied by the models of patents. The second story is occupied by the museum. I spent a very pleasant four hours in this part of the building, looking at the thousands upon thousands of wonders it contains.8explanatory note In one department were several Peruvian mummies of great antiquity. The hair was Ⓐemendationperfect, and remained plaited just as it was perhaps centuries ago; but the bodies were black, dry, and crisp, and what the appearance of the faces were during life, it was impossible Ⓐemendationto determine, for nothing remained but a shapeless mass of skin and flesh. The printing press used by Franklin, in London, nearly one hundred and twenty years agoⒶemendation, was an object worthy of notice. The Ⓐemendationbed is of wood and is not unlike a very shallow box. The platen is only half the size of the bed, thus requiring two pulls of the lever to each full-size sheet. What vast progress has been made in the art of printing! This press is capable of printing about 125 sheets per hour; and after seeing it, I have watched Hoe’s great machine throwing off its 20,000 sheets in the same space of time, with an interest I never before felt.9explanatory note In other cases are to be seen the suits of clothes worn by Washington when he resigned his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the American forces; the coat worn by Jackson at the battle of New Orleans; Washington’s sword, war-tent, cooking utensils, knives and forks, &c., and camp equippage generally; the treaty of the United States with Turkey (a horrible specimen of Oriental chirography;)10explanatory note the original Declaration of Independence; autographs of Bonaparte and several kings of Europe; pagan idols; part of the costumes of Atahualpa and Cortes, and thousands of other things of equal interest.
The Washington Monument is as yet but a plain white marble obelisk 150 feet Ⓐemendationhigh. It will no doubt be very beautiful when finished. When completed, an iron staircase will run up within 25 feet of the top. It is to be 550 feet high. If Congress would appropriate Ⓐemendation$200,000 to the Monument fund, this sum, with the contributions of the people, would build it in Ⓐemendationfour years.11explanatory note
Mr. Forrest played Othello at the National Theatre last night, to a good audience.12explanatory note This is a very large theatre, and the only one of Ⓐemendationconsequence in Washington.
Congress did not convene on Saturday, 18 February 1854. Clemens’s “stroll” actually took place on 17 February.
The statue by Mills (1810–83), cast from bronze cannons captured by Jackson in the War of 1812, was dedicated in January 1853. It represents the uniformed Jackson on a rearing horse, doffing his cap.
Filling two of the eight panels in the Capitol rotunda, these paintings were by Robert W. Weir (1803–89) and John G. Chapman (1808–89), respectively.
Clemens refers to: Lewis Cass (1782–1866), Democratic senator from Michigan; Stephen A. Douglas (1813–61), Democratic senator from Illinois, who in 1852 had been backed unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination by the party’s “Young America” faction; and William H. Seward (1801–72), Whig senator from New York. At this time the Senate was heatedly debating Douglas’s proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act, which, passed in May 1854, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820–21, ending its limitation on the extension of slavery. On 17 February, the day Clemens was in the gallery, Seward spoke for three hours in support of the Missouri Compromise ( DAH , 3:197–98, 428; “Thirty-third Congress,” Washington National Intelligencer, 18 Feb 54, 3; “Doings of Congress,” Washington Evening Star, 18 Feb 54, 2).
House proceedings on 17 February were notable for the unusual amount of bickering and procedural wrangling that preceded and followed debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Act (see Congressional Globe, 28 [I]:442–46). Almost fourteen years later Clemens vividly recreated the scene he describes in this paragraph, recalling that most of the legislators
seemed to be a mob of empty headed whipper-snappers that had only come to Congress to make incessant motions, propose eternal amendments, and rise to everlasting points of order. They glanced at the galleries oftener than they looked at the Speaker; they put their feet on their desks as if they were in a beer-mill; they made more racket than a rookery, and let on to know more than any body of men ever did know or ever could know by any possibility whatsoever. (SLC 1867, no page)
Thomas Hart Benton (1782–1858), Democratic senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1851, served one term in the House (1853–55).
The red sandstone “Castle on the Mall,” designed in Norman style, had been occupied since 1849 but was not completed until 1855. At the time of Clemens’s visit the building contained a library of about thirty-two thousand volumes, an art gallery, and a lecture hall accommodating two thousand people (Goode, 251–59).
Park Benjamin (1809–64), an editor, critic, publisher, and poet, was also a popular lecturer, specializing in humorous and satirical “entertainments” in verse and prose. On 17 February he performed at the Smithsonian Institution, reciting “Fashion,” his poem ridiculing styles in clothing and other fads. His next performance, a lecture on “Americanisms,” was scheduled for 20 February, but was postponed a day because of a snowstorm (various notices, Washington Evening Star, 18–21 Feb 54).
The United States Patent Office Building was modeled on the Parthenon. At this time, in addition to the Patent Office, it housed the Department of the Interior and the National Museum (Oehser, 161–64).
The rotary-style press invented by Richard M. Hoe (1812–86) was first put into use, in 1846, by the Philadelphia Public Ledger and then widely adopted by other metropolitan newspapers (Hoe, 31–32). The fact that Clemens observed a Hoe press at work in a Washington newspaper office may suggest that he had been looking for work.
The Turkish version of a treaty signed at Constantinople on 7 May 1830, establishing guidelines for commerce and navigation between the United States and the Ottoman Empire. The American negotiator had signed a French translation and exchanged it for the Turkish original signed by the representative of the Sublime Porte. This was the only treaty between the United States and the Ottoman Empire in force by 1854 (Hunter Miller, 3:541–98).
In September 1833 the Washington National Monument Society was organized to raise funds by public subscription for a memorial to Washington, a project that Congress had been considering, inconclusively, since 1783. It was not until 4 July 1848, however, that the cornerstone of the monument was laid. Although by March 1854 the obelisk had been brought to a height of 153 feet at a cost of $230,000, work stopped a few months later when funds ran low. An appropriation of $200,000 was proposed in Congress, but for a variety of reasons—including dissension within the Society, doubts about the integrity of the construction already accomplished, and the Civil War—the money was not made available until 1876. Construction was finally completed on 6 December 1884, at a total cost of over $1 million. Dedicated on 21 February 1885, the monument was then the tallest structure in the world, rising to just over 555 feet (Harvey, 3–13, 45–46, 52–108; Annual Cyclopaedia 1884 , 798–99).
Edwin Forrest appeared for the “first and only time” as Othello at the National Theatre on 17 February (“National Theatre,” Washington National Intelligencer, 17 Feb 54,5).
“For the Journal. Washington Correspondence,” Muscatine Journal (weekly), 24 Mar 54, 1, in the P. M. Musser Public Library, Muscatine, Iowa (IaMu), and the Historical Library, The State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines.
L1 , 40–46; Branch 1942, 18–22.
The Musser Public Library file of the Muscatine Journal may be the one kept by the publisher.